In Exodus 20, God's people are free for the first time in four hundred years.
They're now free for three weeks, and Moses has done as God commanded. He brought them to Mount Sinai, close to the place where God first spoke to Moses in the burning bush. This is the place where God intended to speak to all of His people.
However, the people decided they would not live long if they were in His presence or heard Him face to face like that. So they told Moses, "We want you to go for us." It was never God's intention for there to be a
go-between like this, but Moses became the spokesman of God to the people.
These are the things God intended him to say to them. They are free people, made free by God. That's what the preamble to the Ten Commandments tells us.
The subject of the Ten Commandments is freedom. It's God telling these people how to keep the freedom He has given them. You should never entertain the idea that when Moses came down off the mountain he was a preacher with ten suggestions for people who wanted to be religious. He was the leader of a brand-new nation with ten, God-given principles to keep free.
So today, we look at Exodus 20:12, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."
Does that part about "...live long..." bother you? Does it confuse you because you've known children who have honored their father and mother who did not have a long life? Let me tell you what I think it means. I believe it means when your parents raise children who honor their father and mother, they will pass on the character it takes to keep free, and the land can continue in its freedom, prosperity, and with the blessings of God. But if the children cannot honor their father and mother and, therefore, grow to be honorable citizens, then they will not pass that freedom on.
Let's read what Moses said later in Deuteronomy 6, beginning in verse one.
They have now come to the edge of the Promised Land, and Moses is soon going to die. He's reviewing with them all the things God has said, and he's reviewing again the giving of the Ten Commandments those forty years before: "These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you."
In this setting, it seems as if Moses is saying, "The Lord has said all of these commandments are part of what it means to live long and keep freedom."
Then, of course, we have that Scripture in Ephesians 6:1: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 'Honor your father and mother' ... which is the first commandment with a promise ... 'that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.'"
There are three, key words in this statement: obey, honor, and enjoy. Many people live a long time without ever really living and enjoying life. However, those who enjoy life will be those who obey and honor their parents and, therefore, become people who can enjoy the kind of life those things bring.
I'm convinced here the real emphasis is upon living well and keeping freedom, and the link is connected in this context and in Exodus 20:12. It is saying, "As you raise children who obey their parents, they, in turn, will become citizens who will be able to keep the freedom I have given to them." I believe this is consistent with what the Bible is saying.
What a great part mothers play in that. We have often heard about how hard it was for Abraham Lincoln growing up, how impoverished he was. Some say the log cabin didn't have a south wall in it. But what you read is that Abraham Lincoln had something much more valuable than anything he didn't have. He had a possession which is probably the greatest thing a person can have. He had a great mother and an even greater step-mother. They taught him how to live ... and that honor and honesty are unconditional. Because of that, I contend that Abraham Lincoln had something more valuable in his life than any of the material things he didn't have.
However, when you talk about parenting, I'm sensitive to the fact that when you're in the midst of parenting, sermons like this often stir up so much guilt.
None of us feel like we're doing a good job. It's a hard society for the children and young people and for us. It's an anti-family society. Many things out there are pulling, tugging, and attacking the home, and parents often say, "I'm just not getting across to my children. I'm not doing a good job. The enemy is much stronger and greater than me. I'm not helping my child to grow up to be solid and well-adjusted."
I've talked to some parents who say they have feelings of revenge sometimes when they think about being a parent. Have you ever thought about one day, just when your children are getting enough money to barely get by, you're going to ask for money? Or maybe borrow their car and come in at 2:00 or 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, while they are worried to death about where you are or where you have been. Of course, for most of us, we would have to find a place to take a nap and then when we wake up at those hours like we always do anyway we would come home at that time. Or maybe we could borrow the car and say, "I need to go down to the Stop 'n Go to get some suntan lotion," and then later on, you call them from Galveston to tell them an axle is broken and why you like the Stop 'n Go in Galveston better than the one down the street?
Sometimes, parenting brings guilt and makes us understand that raising children is not an exact science. There's not a book that says, "You do this, and they will turn out like you want them to." They become their own people.
We find examples in the Bible that illustrate that. You can have wonderful parents and a totally rebellious child. In Judges 13 through 16, the story is told of a very promising young man named Samson. He had muscles in places where most of us don't even have places. He was strong and well-built. He had the greatest parents. We're told in Scripture, his father Manoah prayed for him the day he was born, dedicating him to the Lord. His mother was a godly woman.
They taught him well and loved him. But he rebelled against their values and everything they taught him. He bullied everybody he could. He took lives and practiced indiscriminate sex. He didn't follow his parents' example and he died very young and very violently.
Of course, just the opposite can be true. You can have a rebellious father and a very good son. Jonathan was David's very best friend, and Jonathan was everything you want a young man to be. He was kind, considerate, and unselfish.
He did many things for David, even though David was his rival for the throne. Jonathan saw this as the will of God and never opposed it. Yet, his father was just the opposite. He was jealous and almost insane in protecting his power.
Of course, many times, children are affected positively by the positive influence and example they have at home. In II Timothy 1:5, the apostle wrote to Timothy and said, "I am thankful for the faith that was in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now is in you, too. This faith has been passed along, and I thank God for that, Timothy."
But inconsistencies in family leadership can make a difference, too. Absalom, who could have been the model for the 1960's hippie, was long-haired and rebellious. He had great promise. He was handsome and could turn on the charm. He almost charmed the nation into crowning him king. But he did not respect his father or obey his father's example, probably because of his father's inconsistency. He saw all the things David did that were inconsistent with what he said, and this may have caused him to be the person he was.
All of these things are a part of what it means to parent and to say that raising a child is not an exact science. But it is good to be the example and be consistent with who we are. We do all we can to be the parents we can be.
A handsome young man of nineteen sat on Death Row. He was the son of a gangster; his father was a mobster. His father's bullet-ridden body had been found locked in the trunk of a car at an airport just two months before. This young man was there because he had been convicted on one count of murder, although he had actually killed three others. He told the pastor who had come to visit him, "My dad told me I could take anything or anyone I thought I was strong enough or smart enough to take, and I have followed my father's example in living all my life." The young man would never live to see his twenty-first birthday, and you wonder how different it could have been if his example at home had been different.
It's important for a lot of reasons that children have parents that can be honored and that they honor their parents. Both are reflected in this command.
And Moses is saying, the whole idea is .... if you want to live a long time (and the other Scripture said if you want to live a long life and enjoy it), then you must learn to obey, honor and love. The song tells us,
"Trust and obey, for there's no other way,
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."
The enjoying usually always comes with the kind of character that can trust, obey, and give honor. In our homes and our spiritual lives, it's true, and we find that this is very important to national survival.
Moses is saying that while it takes courage to fight for and win freedom, it takes character to keep it. All character does ... is give you the freedom to make choices. If you use your freedom to make good choices, you keep your freedom. That's true individually and collectively. If you use your freedom to make bad choices, then you lose it. That doesn't even have to be argued. Everyone can see that point.
So if a nation raises the kind of people who can use their freedom to make the right choices, then they will remain free. That's what this is all about. The people we're producing are the most important thing in this land. More important than any revenue we can gather or anything we can build, more than any technology is the people.
"We're all blind until we see that in the human plan
nothing is worth the making if it does not make the man.
Why build these cities glorious, if man or woman ‘unbuilded’ goes?
In vain, we build the world unless the builder also grows?"
It's true. We've got to have the right kind of people. Now there are a lot of people saying, "It's all over for us. There's no hope."
Billy Graham has said, "If God does not destroy the United States of America, then He needs to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah."
You can see the truth in that statement, but there is encouragement from that event in Scripture. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? If ten righteous people had been found, God would not have destroyed them. That was His promise. In that society, a handful of people committed to God could have changed the course of their history and lives.
That's our responsibility and hope as God's people. As we commit ourselves to Him and raise generation after generation of people committed to Him, then there is hope because God responds in blessing to people as they obey Him. The destiny of a nation usually hinges on the actions of the people of God. And there can be just a few people in this land who are committed to the lordship of Christ and whose lives are showing the kind of character that can make good decisions that could save the country. Those people are very important.
In II Kings 18, there's a time when the Assyrians have attacked again, and they have surrounded Jerusalem. Hezekiah is the king of Israel at that time. The Assyrians have camped outside the walls because they know they've cut off supplies of food and water, so all they have to do is wait until the people are so demoralized that they give up.
King Hezekiah has sent two of his men to talk to the Assyrians to hold them off for a while. While they're having that conversation, the Assyrian general says to the two representatives, "I know what your kind is doing. Right now, he's up in his tower looking toward the east for that cloud of dust that means the king of Egypt is sending those famed Egyptian horses and chariots because your kind has made an arms deal with Egypt. So, I'll tell you what ... my king will drive two thousand horses through your gates if you'll prove you've got men to ride them."
That's the trouble with horses, planes and missiles. You've got to have people to operate them, and it's the kind of people you have that makes the difference.
China was so confident their wall would protect them. It was formidable. Yet, they were attacked two times because the enemy bribed the gatekeepers and walked right through the wall. You've got to have the right kind of people if you're going to keep free.
There is a story that lays out the platform for what family was and should be in America and how we have this foundation of strong families in our country.
It was originally told by Kenneth McFarland who was vice president of General Motors. He loved our land as much as anyone. He was actually given the award for being the outstanding citizen of the United States on one occasion.
He told about these people moving to the plains of Kansas many years ago when they had to travel by wagon train. The people didn't ride in the wagons because they had all of their material possessions in the wagon, so they walked alongside their wagons while they went across that plain.
When the found a place to settle, they couldn't settle close to each other because they had to have a lot of land to graze cattle and farm. So since they couldn't live close to each other, their social life other than that of their own families consisted worshipping together once per quarter in an agreed place ... usually someone's home. The way they emphasized their growing up, they way the teenagers broke into the social life was to get to eat at the big table with the grown-ups at the first meeting after their thirteenth birthday.
One of the young men related this story. "I knew my time was coming. I'd had my thirteenth birthday. My mother didn't want to look bad because that's how parents were gauged, too. The young people were judged by how they acted, and of course, the parents, were judged, too ... you're not in this thing alone.
It's your family. So my mother coached me for hours about how to sit, be polite, smile, say 'thank you,' ask for food, and use knives, forks, and spoons. I was nervous but well-coached when we sat down that day for the meal. Things were going well. Everyone seemed to agree I was doing all right. They began to loosen up and look at my parents and smile. I could tell they were proud of me, and I was feeling good. Then we came to the desert ... a bowl of plums floating in some juice. I didn't know exactly what to do, but I took a spoon. That seemed to be all right, and I was eating when I realized I had something in my mouth that was not a plum. I rolled it around on my tongue. It felt like it had hair on it.
Somebody asked me, 'What did you do?' And I replied, 'I just swallowed the silly thing for my folks' sake.'"
I submit to you the kind of character that keeps a nation strong and free is the kind of character that's willing to say, "I will swallow some things I think are silly for the folks' sake because I'm not in this by myself." There's a rhyming story that goes with that illustration.
My son came home, and he said to me,
"Today, I saw a boy fall out of a tree.
He couldn't get up from where he lay.
An ambulance came and took him away.
I said, "My son, you saw the boy lying pale in dirt.
But how many would you say got hurt?"
"Oh," said my son, "just the boy, no more.
The crowd went away and all was same as before."
"Oh no, my son, not all was the same.
Think of the family that bears that boys name.
His father was hurt. His mother was hurt.
His sister was hurt, too.
Right now, all those who loved him are heartsick and blue.
Your joys and your sorrows are not yours alone.
So think straight, live straight, be kind and be true
If for no other reason than others love you."
If we would keep our freedom, we must hear the Lord God say that you cannot exercise a line-item veto on any of the Ten Commandments.
You absolutely must not rule this one out: "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."
